As champions of all that is good and right in the world these days, it seems the EU can do no wrong. From social welfare, to progressive environmental policy, to animal rights, time and again those Europeans make us North Americans look like the dirty, ignorant provincials that we are. In truth, this is only half sarcasm; but the new EU-wide ban on seal products carries with it the disgusting reek of hypocritical political pandering, just in time for June’s European parliamentary elections.

Animal cruelty is apparently the issue at hand. After all, what could be worse than clubbing an innocent, ivory-furred week-old baby seal, not yet old enough to even move? Never mind that hunting pups has been illegal in Canada since 1987. It must have lifted such a burden off the hearts of the EU’s politicians to finally rid their union of such (fictitious) malignity. I wonder, did the French celebrate with a satisfying spread of pate de foie gras? Perhaps the Italians indulged in some veal parmigiana? Or maybe the Spaniards, in such a mood of lusty self-satisfaction, reveled in a stirring round of bullfighting? Was a fox hunt in the cards for the good old boys in Britain? Maybe not - I’m sure that every single smug one of them is an ethical vegetarian, just like the animal-loving populations they represent.

The self-serving hypocrisy represented by condemning the Canadian seal hunt while casting a blind-eye to the disgusting depravity of industrial meat production is simply staggering. That the cute-factor plays such a paramount role in the ethical considerations of animal rights is similarly shameful. I wonder how many of the politicians who signed the bills have seen a seal that’s older than two weeks, once it’s shed its pristine white coat - would they still be so sympathetic after laying eyes on the bloated, parasite-pitted monstrosities they become after a few years? (Funny how we shudder at the prospect of Koreans or Vietnamese eating dog, but think nothing of digging into a pork chop, which comes from a demonstrably much more intelligent animal.) Then again, I guess impoverished Newfoundland fishermen aren’t the most attractive things around, either.

Perhaps I’m being too hard on the EU, though. Maybe they aren’t looking to capture the moral high ground in order to please their constituencies (which seem to love consuming seal-products, given that Europe is the world’s largest market). Maybe it’s just plain-old illegal protectionism, given that Sweden and Finland both hunt commercially, and the UK culls seals to preserve their fisheries.

(Since the issue at hand is strictly cruelty, of course, I won’t bother mentioning that the seal hunt has been a traditional, sustainable aspect of Canada’s maritime ecosystem for hundreds of years, and that the harp seal population has never been in any risk of collapse. More sustainable and humane, dare I say it, than the vast majority of farming practices in the Western world…)

I continue to hate politics.